


Dangers of White Day

by GrudgeDemon (diedraechin)



Category: Skip Beat!
Genre: Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Hizuri Kuon - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Revelations, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8468536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diedraechin/pseuds/GrudgeDemon
Summary: Ren has the perfect White Day return gift for Kyoko.  Or not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You can read this as a one hundred percent stand alone fic. Or you can read it as a side story for Your Eyes Close as I Fall Asleep. Since that one comes way after this one. Because of this, I'm not linking the two as a series or collection at this time.

Dangers of White Day

Ren never thought that a little slip of paper folded four times in his pocket could be so heavy, and yet it was.  He moved from sitting on the end of the bed to laying back, his legs still off the side, staring at the ceiling that was so different from his own.

“You know, I can still do the dishes,” he called out from the bedroom.

“They’re my dishes.”

Four months.  He’d been with Kyoko for four months, and in that time everything had changed.  Where he was was proof enough of that.  Part of him thought that she’d live with the couple above the restaurant until she lived with him, but instead she moved into Kotonami’s building and into her own apartment.  Which was good in some ways, but he would have preferred her living in his building, if not his apartment.

He sighed.  “I have your White Day return gift.”

“No.”

He sat up and gave in and left the bedroom.  Trying to coax her into joining him was not working, and he could still hear the water running in her kitchen.  “No?”

She sighed and looked up.  “I hate White Day.  It’s the worst day of the year.  I give out anything, even _ cookies _ and not chocolates, and I get ridiculously overpriced things back.  Cookies cost maybe a few hundred yen.”

He smiled.  “My White Day gift for you is a piece of paper.”  What was printed on the piece of paper was not exactly inexpensive, though.  It was a grey area, in his opinion.

“A piece of paper?”  Her eyes narrowed.  She was obviously suspicious.

He nodded.  “Just one even.  I didn’t even have to go to the store to buy it.”

She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and looked at him.  “I don’t know if I trust this ‘just a piece of paper’ game you’re playing.”

“Aren’t you curious though?  Just a little?”  He reached into his pocket to pull it out and… nothing.  

***

He looked panicked and kept digging in his pocket, then his other.  Kyoko followed Ren to the bedroom, where he sighed and snatched up a piece of paper that had fallen on the floor, then held it out to her.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and took it, unfolding it slowly.  There were a lot of numbers and letters, all in English, but she recognized the symbol printed in the corner.

“Plane tickets?!  Plane tickets are not inexpensive and are not a piece of paper.”

“They’re printed on a piece of paper.”  He laid down next to her and turned on his side so he could keep looking at her.  “Keep reading.”

“To Los Angeles.”

He nodded.

She furrowed her brow and pressed her lips together.  “Why would you get plane tickets for me and Kuu-san?”

***

He took a deep breath.  “They aren’t for you and Kuu, they’re for you and me.  Hizuri, K. isn’t for ‘Kuu’, it’s for ‘Kuon’.  I thought I’d take you home so you could visit my parents.”

Kyoko was very still. The piece of paper with the information about their plane tickets printed on it was still clutched in her fingers, but she wasn’t looking at it and was instead staring at him.

“Kyoko?”  He swallowed.  “You knew that Ren was my stage name.”

She nodded.  “I did, I just didn’t think…”  She blinked and shook her head.  “I mean, I knew that Kuon... you weren’t dead, but I didn’t think that you would be... you.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.  She seemed to be taking it mostly in stride.  “My father would really like to see you again, and I’m sure that my mother would love you.”

A slow smile started turning her lips up in the corner and some more of the tension he’d been holding on to started to melt away.

“I’d get to see Otou-san again.  I’ve only been able to call him once since his last visit.  Usually we just e-mail.”  He hadn’t been aware that Kyoko was actually keeping in touch with his father.  But then he never talked to his parents, so he shouldn’t really be surprised.  He hadn’t even told them he was planning to visit.  Let alone visit with his girlfriend.  He’d get to it.  Maybe.  They could even just show up and if no one was home, well, he could think of worse things than having Kyoko to himself in a Malibu beach house.

“Do you like it?  Even if you’re right and it isn’t just a piece of paper?”

She nodded and smiled at him.  “You don’t look like your parents at all, do you know that?”

And on to part two.  He took a deep breath.

***

“Actually, I do.  Rather a lot.  I’ve always been told that I’m a perfect blend of them.”

Kyoko shook her head.  “I’ve seen a picture of your mother, she’s a blonde.  So is your father, for that matter.”

Ren nodded.  “So am I.”  He twisted a lock of hair around his finger.  “Miss Woods has been in charge of my look as Ren since I moved to Japan when I was fifteen.  I rarely ever see my real hair color anymore, but I know that it is indeed still  _ very _ blond.”

“You’re blond?”  A weight settled in the pit of her stomach.

Ren nodded and smiled.  “Do you not like blonds?”

A blond Ren would look like Corn.  Suddenly, her fairytale world crashed in on itself as reality forced its way in.  A blond Ren would  _ be _ Corn.

Asshole.

She stood up.  “Get out.”

***

It felt like the floor just went out from under him.  The look on Kyoko’s face went cold.  She was furious.  “Kyoko?”

“It’s not just your hair.  You wear contacts, too.”

He nodded.  Where was she going with this?  

She shook her head and paced to one side of the room and then the other.  This sort of anger he’d expected at the initial reveal of his name, not now.  She nodded, then walked over to him and stared at him for a minute.

Then she slapped him.

His hand went to his cheek reflexively.  The only times he’d ever been slapped were on set and the actresses never tried very hard.  Even when his past girlfriends had broken up with him, they’d never slapped him.  It stung!  “What the hell, Kyoko?”

“What the hell, **_CORN_ ** .”  Her eyes narrowed.  “You knew all along.  You _ played _ me.  Played with me.  You kissed me.  You even listened to me tell you all about it!”

Fuck.

***

It was all a joke to him.  All of it.  She wrapped her arms around herself.  “Get out.”

“Kyoko, you don’t understand.”

“All those times that you were bullying me, you knew.  You laughed.  It was all a great joke to Hizuri Kuon, no doubt.  How I treasured our time together in Kyoto.  How I kept the stone you gave me and believed in its magic.  You must have thought I was ridiculous on the beach in Guam.  Thought you’d have a good laugh at my expense.”

She felt the furious tears welling up in her eyes.

“And even then, you were bullying me.  Making me upset.  Tricking me into kissing you.  What sick game were you playing with me?”

***

Ren flinched.  She wasn’t really wrong.  He knew even as he was saying those things to her in Guam as Corn that he was being cruel.

“Kyoko--”

“No!  You didn’t think that maybe this was a thing I’d like to know before we slept together?”

He opened his mouth to remind her about their first time and quickly snapped it shut.  This was not the time, but... “To be fair--”

“We’ve been sleeping together for  _ three months _ .  Three months and I’m finding out now.”

She might have had a point about that.  “Kyoko, I--”

“And even at the coffee shop, you had to know how I felt!  I was so obvious when I was in Guam with Corn about how I felt about you!  It’s like everything is a huge joke and I hate it!  I hate you!  Just. Get. Out.”

The air went out of him like he’d been punched in his solar plexus.  He swallowed, nodded and walked out of her apartment.

***

He was brooding and he didn’t care. Unfortunately, his manager did care.

“I take it your White Day gift didn’t go over very well?”

Ren shook his head.  “No. No, it did not.  At all.  It went horribly.”

Yashiro patted him on the back.  “I don’t even want to know what you thought would be a good White Day gift, then.  But on the bright side, you can talk to her after the readthrough today and work things out.  You’ll stop frowning, and I can stop worrying about whether or not you’ll scare the actress you’re going to work with.”

That’s right.  Kyoko had signed on for a three-episode role in the drama that was about to start shooting.  He took a deep breath.  He’d been running through scenarios of how to explain to her that she had completely misunderstood for over a day now.  

The director came in and stood at the end of the long table the cast was gathered at.  “There’s been a casting change.  The actress that we originally cast for Misako pulled out this morning in favor of a different project.  Since it’s a small role, we’ll be able to keep moving forward, and her agency sent another actress in her place that I think will do just as well in the role.”  The director paused and looked toward the door.  A girl in a pink jumpsuit walked in.  It was not Kyoko.

She bowed.  “Hello, I’m Koenji Erika.  I’m looking forward to playing the role of Misako.  Please take care of me.”

“Ren?”

He turned toward Yashiro.

“Wasn’t Misako the role that Kyoko-chan had been cast for?”

He gave a short nod and turned back to the table.

***

“I can’t believe that you pulled out of Tsuruga-san’s drama.”

Kyoko took a deep breath and looked at Kanae.  “Why?  Even you said that getting a main role in a separate drama would be better than a three-episode stint on one of Tsuruga-san’s.”  She frowned and flipped through the new script.  “They reached out and I thought of what you’d said, and decided that this would be better for my career.”

Kanae sat down next to her and lowered her voice.  “Did you tell him first, at least?”

She shook her head.  “No.  I’m not speaking to him because he’s an asshole.  I was right.  Love  _ is _ just a prelude to disaster and despair.”

“What did he do?”  Kanae sounded honestly curious.

Sighing, Kyoko turned her face to look at her friend.  She didn’t care that it was a rather murderous face.  “He gave me a White Day gift.”

***

“What if we get something else to eat?”  Hikaru-kun’s voice was tentative, and Kyoko looked up from being lost in thought.

“Oh! Family restaurant!”  Yuusei sidled over.  “Those are always fun.”

Shinichi shook his head.  “I’d rather go to an izakaya.  Get something more traditional.”

“Well?  We’ll let you pick.”  Hikaru-kun looked at his two bandmates and then back at her.

All three of them were looking expectantly at her, and they were avoiding the worst calorie bomb she’d ever seen in her entire life.  She nodded.  “All right.  I need to put Bo away first, though.”

“Do you want some company?”

She laughed.  “To go down the hall to costuming?  No, it’s fine, Hikaru-senpai.”  She set Bo’s head on top of the cart.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She turned and left the members of Bridge Rock.  They knew that her manager and even Sawara-san were pushing her to hand the role of Bo over to someone else, since she was getting busier.  They weren’t discouraging her, but they were doubling down on the dinner invitations.

She sighed.  She wasn’t really in the mood for company, but not having company was probably worse.  She pushed the cart in front of her harder than she meant to and it started rolling away from her.  She hurried up to try and catch it before it crashed into something and caused damage.

It didn’t crash into something, but someone.

She bit back a groan.

“So I found the suit, but no one is in it.  This wasn’t what I meant when I decided I wanted to look for the chicken.”  Ren/Kuon/ASSHOLE was muttering to himself.

“Why are you looking for the chicken?”

His head snapped up from looking at the Bo costume when he heard her voice.  

“I wanted to talk to him.”

***

He wasn’t ready to talk to Kyoko.  Hadn’t figured out what to say to Kyoko to fix this.  And the way she’d crossed her arms over her chest and was glaring at him wasn’t promising.  He’d hoped to run into the chicken and get some advice first.

There wasn’t really anyone else that he could ask.

He watched as Kyoko took a deep breath.  “I was just putting the suit away, so there won’t be another appearance of Bo tonight, sorry.”

“Bo?  Is that the actor who plays the chicken?”  Why would Kyoko even be in charge of putting the suit away?

She shook her head.  “No, Bo is the name of the chicken.”  She paused, and he watched the emotions play over her face.  There was a lot of anger, but then fear and what he definitely knew had to be remorse.  For what he didn’t know, but he’d seen that look on Kyoko’s face probably more than any other.  In the end, anger won out.  He wished he was surprised by that.  “I’m not getting back into that thing so you can tell me your woes because I’m mad at you, and because I promised Bridge that I’d go to dinner with them.”

He just stared at her.  “You’re the chicken.”  And it made sense.  The way that the chicken had hated him so passionately when they’d first met, but had still come to his help.  The way the chicken had encouraged him when he was floundering with Katsuki.  Even the fact that the chicken had shown up at TV Japan in a mismatched suit.

Especially that last bit.  The mismatched suit just screamed Kyoko doing her all to help.

She nodded.  “I’m the chicken.  Somehow, I don’t think this reveal is as bad as yours.”

He shook his head.  “Kyoko.”  The things he’d told her and the way he’d acted and… He really wanted to be just a little angry about it, but... “You’re right.  I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Then you’ll forgive me?”  He didn’t want to go through another five days of not talking to her.

She pressed her lips together and the furrow on her brow deepened.  “No.”

He sighed.

“I’m not ready to talk to you.  And I’m keeping my senpais waiting.  We had a long shooting day, everyone is hungry.”  She grabbed the handles of the cart and pulled it away from his feet.

“But you will?  Talk to me?”  He knew he sounded too eager.

Another sigh, this time from her.  “Yes.  Eventually.  I even talk to Sho on occasion, and in the grand scheme of things he’s probably a bigger asshole than you.”

He couldn’t help it, he laughed.  There wasn’t much humor in it.  “I know that I have sunk to a very low level indeed when I’m on the same plane as Fuwa Sho.”

She looked away and he saw the faintest blush color her cheeks.  “Maybe one level above.   _ Maybe _ .”

He nodded.  He watched her hands as they tightened and loosened their grip on the cart, and nodded again.  He had a feeling it wasn’t completely hopeless.  He walked up next to her and without touching her -- because if he did, he’d grab hold and not let go -- he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.  “Thank you.”

She turned angry eyes on him, but the blush was deeper. “For what?  I only said you were marginally better than Sho.  You’re still an asshole.”

“Because just seeing you makes me happier.  And being one step above Fuwa gives me a sliver of hope.  I can work with a sliver of hope."

He smiled at her.

***

It was the saddest angelic smile she’d ever seen.  He really was sorry.

But she was still really hurt and didn’t let herself give in to the desire to wrap her arms around him.  Where were all her grudges when she needed them?  They just wouldn’t come out whenever he smiled at her like that.

He was the one to walk away first.

She still loved him.  She’d given up on trying to slam the box shut again and relock it days ago.  It just kept popping back open.

And she knew that she needed to give him the opportunity to explain himself, because she knew there were deep reasons why he’d kept his identity a secret.  Even in Guam.  Even as he played the role of Corn.  But it didn’t mean that she wasn’t hurt.

She even knew that not knowing before they’d slept together wasn’t… well, it wasn’t like they’d had any discussions about it beforehand, and after it was more about… logistics.  Making sure that they were safe, that it was what they both wanted.  But he’d had opportunities before they got really entangled.  Sort of literally.

She pushed the cart into the costume department, handed it over to the woman who would check it and put it aside for cleaning if necessary, and walked back out.

He was laughing with the Ishibashis when she got back to them.  He looked happy.  They were telling him some story, and his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

Hikaru-kun gestured toward her.  “Kyoko-chan!  We were just telling Tsuruga-san about your badminton challenge with Fuwa on your first episode, and how much the audience really liked it.  Especially how you lost.”

Kyoko forced a smile onto her face.

Ren/Kuon/Mostly-an-Asshole turned his head and smiled at her, gave her a little wave and then said his goodbyes and left.

“Leader made the executive decision that we’re going to a family restaurant for dinner since he says that you shouldn’t have to put up with us getting drunk on too much beer.”

***

Yashiro sighed and sat down next to him as he handed over the little paper cup of coffee.

“What’s wrong?”

“You need to make up with Kyoko-chan.  I miss her.”

Ren pressed his hand to his forehead.  “ _ You _ miss her?”

“Well, probably not as much as you, but yes.  If she’s not speaking to you, she’s not speaking to me.  It’s been ten days.   _ Ten _ .  What did you do?”

He took a deep breath and avoided the question that Yashiro had asked.  “I’m working on it.”

As if summoned, the topic of their quiet conversation was coming down the hall.

“Is she doing this on purpose?  To annoy you?  Because that is a cuter outfit than normal.”

Ren sighed.  It was.  The weather had snapped a bit colder the last couple of days and he had a feeling that Kyoko didn’t want to go back to the more muted colors of her fall and winter wardrobe.  However, he hadn’t known that she’d even owned a denim miniskirt.  A  _ tight _ denim miniskirt.  She was wearing it over leggings; however, that didn’t take away from how it clung to her form.

She was jogging down the hall. He turned his head to look at who had so much of her attention, and wasn’t surprised to see Kotonami-san tapping her foot impatiently.

***

“He’s looking at you.”

“Who?”  Kyoko skidded to a halt and pulled her bag in front of her from her shoulder, digging through it for the script.  She was just excited that Moko-san had asked if she wanted help running lines for her new drama.

“Who do you think? Tsuruga-san.”

She looked up at Moko-san, and then over her shoulder in the direction that Kanae was looking.  And he was there.  Sitting on a bench in the hall with Yashiro, looking right at her.  They both were.

“It’s the skirt.  It has to be the skirt.  Has that been in your closet all this time?”

Kyoko shook her head.  “Chiyorin talked me into getting it.  She thinks that I should wear it without the leggings, but I could never do that!  So she talked me into trying it on with leggings and kept saying how cute it was and then she paired it with this top and… I lost.”

Kanae laughed.  “I should take her shopping; she has good taste.  It really is a cute outfit and pretty perfect for you.  Obviously your boy--”  

Kyoko glared.

“Obviously  _ someone _ seems to think so as well.”  She crossed her arms after taking the script that Kyoko handed her.  “Are you going to talk to him again?  It’s been almost two weeks.”

Kyoko sighed.  “I should.  But now it’s just awkward.  I’ve been angry for too long and don’t even know how to approach him anymore.”

Kanae blinked at her.  “So, you aren’t angry anymore?”

“Oh, I am.  I’m still furious, but I’m willing to at least listen to his explanation now.”

“Shouldn’t you tell this to him?”

Kyoko waved her hands in front of her.  They started walking back down the hall toward LA Hearts.  “I can’t.”

“Oh yeah, he really likes that skirt, Kyoko-chan.”

She looked over.  Kanae was looking behind them with a smug look.

“Moko-san!”

***

_ Just listen to it.  The lyrics are pretty clear, so you should be able to understand them even if they’re in English.  I just… There are things I need to explain to you about everything and I can’t if you aren’t talking to me, but at least this… it might give you an idea. _

Kyoko stared at her phone and sighed.

This was actually the last thing she expected.  A song.  In her inbox.  From Ren/Kuon/Maybe-an-Asshole.  She didn’t even know he listened to music of any sort.

She leaned back in her chair at LA Hearts, pulled a set of earbuds out of her bag and plugged them into her phone.  She put them in her ears and started listening, and almost immediately pressed ‘Stop’.

It was a pop song.  A  _ pop _ song.  She laughed.  She hadn’t known what she was expecting, but an American pop song was not it.  It was even a vaguely familiar one, which meant the group was large enough to get international airplay.

She took a deep breath.  He said to listen to the lyrics, so she would.  She pressed ‘Play’ again.

***

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kyoko-chan listen to music before.”  Yashiro was looking over his shoulder toward the cafe.  “I mean, I assume she listened to  _ his _ music when they were together, but… Maybe she’s listening to a script reading.  She seems really too focused for it to be music.”

Ren turned around.  And sure enough, Kyoko was sitting at a table in LA Hearts with her chin resting on her hand, earbuds in her ears going to the phone that was lying on the middle of the table.

She looked really intent on what she was listening to.

He held his breath for a moment.  It would be foolish to hope that she’d even opened the email he’d sent her, let alone decided to listen to the song.  It wasn’t even the sort of thing that he’d listen to normally.  They weren’t one of the handful of groups he followed, but when he would listen to American internet radio while cleaning his apartment, their music came on pretty frequently, and this one...

It reminded him of Kyoko.  And her not speaking to him.  And the situation he found himself in.  So he’d bought it and sent it to her.

But Yashiro was probably right, she was probably listening to a script reading for her drama.

“Let’s get a cup of coffee.  You’re less likely to be caught staring if your seat just happens to be facing the direction in which she is sitting.”

He could hear the amusement in Yashiro’s voice, but gave in and followed him anyway.

***

Kyoko listened three times.  It was a completely pathetic, overblown, poppy little love song, and yet… She had to bite back a smile.  It was cute.  Sweet, too.

She saw Ren sit down with Yashiro at a table not too far away, and signaled for her waitress.  The staff were all pretty familiar with her.

“Yes, Kyoko-san?”

“Can you take Tsuruga-san a black coffee, but put two sugars in it first?  On my bill.”

The waitress’s eyes went wide.  “He doesn’t take sugar in his coffee.”

“I know, it’s just a bit of an inside joke.  Don’t worry, he won’t get mad and he’ll understand.”

The waitress sighed, but nodded.  They were also pretty used to seeing her and Ren and Yashiro all having coffee together, so the request wouldn’t seem completely strange.

Kyoko pressed ‘play’ on her phone again and kept an eye on his table through her lashes.

***

“Ah, can I get--”

“It’s a coffee with milk and sugar on the side, right, Yashiro-san?”

Yashiro nodded at the waitress and smiled.

Ren watched as she frowned while setting the black coffee in front of him.  So he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine.”  The waitress blushed.  “Did the two of you want anything to eat?”

“Ah, we don’t have time for anything but a coffee.  Thank you though.”  Yashiro paused as the waitress walked off.  “She’s looking at you.”

“The waitress or Kyoko?”

“Kyoko-chan.  She’s actually doing a really good job of looking like she isn’t, but I caught her shifting her chair.”

He glanced over.  She still had her head resting on her hand, but a small blush had colored her cheeks.  He took in a deep breath and took a sip of his coffee.  And immediately spit it out.

“Ren!”

He stared at the coffee cup in his hand.  It was sweet.  There was  _ sugar _ in it.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  Standing, he took his coffee with him to where Kyoko was sitting.

“I think they brought me your coffee.”

She pulled one of the earbuds out of her ears and looked up at him, watching as he sat down across from her.  “Pretty sure that you’re the one who requested ‘Sugar’.”

“You listened?”

She bit her lip.  “You’re a sap.  I do have one question, though.”

He hummed as he took a sip of the coffee.  It would have been fine if he’d known in advance that there was sugar in it.  It was a little sweet, but not unbearably so.

“Is this really the sort of thing you listen to all the time, because it seems so very… not you.”

He laughed.  “It isn’t, but I heard it and thought it definitely would get my point across if I could get you curious enough to listen to it.  I don’t hate the song, though.  Especially right now.”

Kyoko took a deep breath.  “I’ll listen.”

“Tonight?  I’m done at nine thirty, so ten?”

She nodded.

***

He took a deep breath and looked down at his wrist.  He ran his fingers over the watch face before taking it off and handing it to Kyoko.

She took it from his hand and looked at it.  It was stopped, as she’d seen last time she held it in her hands.  This time, she saw the crack around the edge of the facing. “It’s stopped.”

“Two thirteen AM.”

“AM?”  There was no way to tell if it was day or night on this sort of watch.

He nodded.

She turned it over.  There was a barely perceptible engraving on the back.  She held it close to her face and could just make out what it said:   _ To Rick.  Congrats on your record deal. Kuon. _

“It’s not your watch.”

He shook his head.  “It belonged to my best friend and it stopped when he died.”  He swallowed.  “I’m really sorry about Guam.”  His eyes unfocused as he looked past her for a moment.  “I even knew that I was being a jerk at the time.  The entire shoot for that movie was hard on me.”

She nodded.  She’d known that, better than anyone else.

“I … was actually jealous of  _ me _ .  I didn’t like that I was standing in front of you without a mask on, and yet you were giving preference to Ren.  Even though I knew that you didn’t know that we were one and the same.  That day that I spent with you as Corn… it healed a part of me, Kyoko.  It really did restore  _ my _ , Kuon’s, smile.  My raw emotions were running very near the surface the whole time we were filming and repeatedly overwhelmed me.”  He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, setting it into disarray.  “Filming  _ TraMa _ , I didn’t have a choice but to deal with my feelings about Rick.  See, it’s my fault that he’s dead.”

Kyoko bit her lip and reached out for his hand.  “You don’t--”

“But I do.  Telling you my name and asking for you to care for that person, well, you need to know who that person is, because he’s not the little boy you met in Kyoto when you were six.  That week was probably one of the happiest of my life, but it is the exception and not the rule.”

Kyoko took a deep breath.  “How’d he die?”

“Rick was always telling me that I shouldn’t let people push me around.  That if I had the black belts, I should use them.  It wasn’t the way my father wanted me to use martial arts, though, so I never did.  However, by the time I was fifteen, I’d gotten mixed in with a really bad crowd with some ties to a local branch of the Russian mob.  They sold drugs for them.  And I came into contact with their point man.  He had recently come over from Russia and didn’t like me very much, since I’m mixed Russian and Japanese and American.  It wasn’t the first fight I’d gotten into, but it was the last for a long time.”

He swallowed.  Kyoko held onto his hand.  She felt that if she didn’t tether him to her, he’d vanish.

“Rick was out with his girlfriend in the area and saw me.  I was covered with blood.  On my fists, my shirt, my shoes.  None of it was mine.  He tried to stop me, talk some sense into me, but then that guy took off, leaving his flunkies behind, and I chased after him.  The road wasn’t busy, but when Rick crossed coming after me a car took a corner really fast.  The driver was speeding and didn’t even try to swerve.  Rick went flying.  I can even remember the sound of him hitting the pavement.  There was so much blood.”  He stopped; it looked like he was going to be sick, but he swallowed, keeping his eyes trained down to the table between them.

She took a deep breath and lifted her hand to his face and stroked his cheek.  “Ren?”

He blinked and looked at her.  “You’re right.  I should have told you sooner.”

She sighed.  “This isn’t the time--”

“I should have told you right away, so that when you walked away it wouldn’t hurt so much.  I just spent two weeks trying to get you to talk to me again, and you’re going to walk out that door because ‘damaged’ doesn’t even begin to cover who I am.”

Kyoko went around the table and sat in his lap, straddling him.  She took his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You were pissed off because I lied to you in Guam, how can I expect you not to now that you know--”

She pressed her finger against his lips.  “I’m pissed off about that because you were mean and took your teasing too far.”  She shook her head.  “That is a separate issue.  This… I knew that whatever you were going to tell me tonight was going to be bad.  Was going to involve someone dying and you feeling responsible for it.  I was too angry to listen when you told me your name.  I needed the space to put aside my own feelings so I could focus on yours.  If I hadn’t been ready to listen, I wouldn’t have opened that email.”  She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his forehead.  “Kuon.”

He closed his eyes and shuddered.  Wrapping his arms around Kyoko, he held her to him tightly.  “You missed your chance.  You can’t leave now.”

***

Kuon took a deep breath and put the handset of his landline to his ear.  He looked down at his lap while the phone rang.  Kyoko’s head was resting on his thigh, her hair falling across her cheek.  He brushed it away so he could watch her sleeping face.

They had talked.  A lot.  They’d agreed that there would be no trip to LA right now.  There were some things that needed to happen first.

And now he was following through on one of the promises he’d made to her just hours ago.  He had no right to be a coward when she was always so brave.  This hurdle was no where near as bad as hers had been.

The phone connected and he heard someone laugh in the background.  “Hello?”  The crisp English crackled through the phone and into his ear.

He opened his mouth to say something and stopped, unsure what to say.

“Hello?” A sigh.  “I don’t recognize this number.  Who’s calling?”

“Dad.”

His father’s voice was quiet when he spoke.  “You… you called, and called me that--”

“Don’t get used to it, it makes me feel like a little kid.  If it’s a bad time and you have company--”

“No! No.  Don’t you dare hang up this phone.  You finally called.  I don’t care if I was entertaining the Dalai Lama, my son finally called home.  Everyone else can wait.”

Kuon squeezed his eyes shut.  He heard something break in the background, but he was trying to stay centered and didn’t say anything.  Instead he set his free hand on Kyoko’s side and stroked her with his thumb.

“Kuon!  Give me the phone, Kuu!  Kuon!”  His mother’s voice was loud.  Much more so than his father’s.  “Is it you?  Are you really on the phone?  Your father isn’t playing a prank, is he?”

“Yeah, it’s me.  I just thought I’d call home.”

***

Kyoko furrowed her brow and shifted.  It was raining or sprinkling or something.  She opened her eyes.

It was neither.

“Yes.  I’ve been eating.  Even home-cooked meals.  Not every day, but often.”

He was speaking in English on the phone.

“No.  I haven’t learned to cook.  Yeah. Breakfast too.  God, you people and your obsession with me eating.”  He sighed and another tear leaked out from the corner of his eye and followed the trail down his cheek, dripping off his chin and onto her cheek.  “Every day.  I have these little bentos.”  He looked down at her and smiled when he saw she was awake.

Kyoko bit her lip.

He switched to Japanese.  “Go back to sleep.  It’s fine.”

She reached up and brushed another tear off his cheek.  She didn’t say anything though.

“Really, I’m fine.  It’s late, but I’ll take you home when I’m off the phone.”

“I can take a cab.”  She kept her voice low and started to sit up.

“I heard a girl!  You have a girl over?!  What are you saying?”  The English crackled through the speaker.

“My mother.”  He kept speaking to her in Japanese.  “I’m not letting you take a cab at three in the morning.  Just...  Get a bit more sleep, and then I’ll drive you back to your apartment.”

She nodded and put her head back down on his thigh, but she didn’t close her eyes.  It seemed good enough for Kuon though.

“Yes, I have a girl over.  It’s not so big a deal that you need to shout, though.”  He pressed a button and Kyoko could hear the other half of the conversation.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

Kyoko bit her lip on a smile.

“Well, she hasn’t left me yet, so I guess so.”

“You guess so?”  His father’s voice was gruff.  “I know her, I bet.  She’s a good cook.  Does Kyoto style really well.”

He sighed and stroked her hair.  “Well, she is from Kyoto, so I’m not that surprised.  How you know-- Nevermind, I don’t want to know.  It will probably annoy me.”

“Who’s from Kyoto?  And don’t annoy him.  He’ll never call back again and I’ll have to wait for years, and even though I’m on my deathbed, he still won’t call.”

Kyoko’s eyes widened, but he shook his head.  “She’s joking.”

“You don’t know that!”

Kuon licked his lips.  “Yeah, I do.  You’ve been making this same joke since before I could understand it was a joke.”

His father’s voice came back through.  “You told her?”

“Everything.”

“Kuon.”  His mother’s voice was suddenly worried.

“Well, not everything everything, but the important parts.  Everything would take a long time.”  A bit of the sarcasm he’d had as a teen when dealing with his parents slipped into his voice.

“Don’t be smart.”

“Yes, mother.”

“If it really is after three, you should get Kyoko-chan home.  She’s still young and has a reputation to maintain.”

“Is that her name?  Kyoko?  Wait isn’t that--”

“Yes, you figured it out, Father, are you happy?”

“For my children to be together?  Yes.”  He paused.  “This isn’t it, is it?  You’ll call again?”

Kuon didn’t answer right away and he didn’t look down at her, either.  He stared off into the middle distance for a minute, a whole series of emotions playing across his face.  “Yeah.  I think I can manage a call now and then.”  He paused, and his voice got a little harder.  Closer to the tone that he’d used as Cain, not the soft and open one she’d been hearing since she woke up.  “But not all the time and don’t you start calling me.  Boundaries.  There are going to be boundaries.”

“We’ve waited this long.  We can wait until you call again. Just not another five or more years, all right?”

“Maybe every month.”

“I love you, baby.”

He grimaced and shook his head.  Kyoko barely managed to stifle a snicker.  “No. No.  This is what I mean when I say boundaries, Mother.”

“But I’ve missed my baby boy.”

He sighed.  “I’m twenty-two.  Stop.  You’re embarrassing me in front of my girlfriend.  If you want me to call next month, just…”

“We get it.  We do.  It’s just been a long time since we’ve talked to you, Kuon, and we do miss you.  Almost seven years is a really long time to not talk to our son.  It’s like a third of your life.  We’re just really happy to hear your voice again.”  Kuu’s voice sounded gruff and Kyoko was pretty sure that he was crying.

“Next time I want to hear all about Kyoko.”

Kuon’s forehead creased.  “I’m going to go.  I’ll call again.”

“Love you.”

“Yeah.  You too.”  Kuon pressed the ‘end call’ button on the handset and tossed it to the other end of the couch.

Kyoko sat up and wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his chest.

“Do I have to take you home?  I could take you home in the morning.”  She felt his cheek settle against the top of her head.

She took a deep breath.  She had never stayed over.  Not since he helped her with Natsu, and back then she’d stayed in the spare room.  She was pretty sure that wasn’t what he meant.  She nodded.

He sighed and she immediately felt guilty.  “Do you start early?”

“No.  I don’t have to be at the studio until around ten.”

His fingers were clenching and unclenching in her top at her waist.  “I need to be at LME at eight thirty, so it seems that I do have the earlier start.”

“You need to get some sleep.”  She didn’t want to leave him.  He still seemed raw and ragged.  She changed her mind.

He nodded.  “But I’m still not letting you take a cab.”

“I know.”  She stood up.  “I need a t-shirt or something.  Can I borrow one?”  She turned to walk to his bedroom feeling much less confident than she hoped she looked.  This was not like Cain and Setsu.  This was them.  Ren… Kuon and Kyoko.

She heard him take a deep breath and she heard him stand up and start following her.  And she watched as he opened a drawer and took a shirt out, holding it out for her.  And she watched as he stripped off almost all his clothes, tossing them in the hamper before climbing into bed.

And he watched as she took off her top and her jeans.  As she pulled the much-too-large shirt over her head.  As she folded her clothes and put them on the dresser.  And he watched as she climbed in after him.

Kyoko curled up against him, snaking her arm across his bare chest and put her head on his shoulder.

They slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case anyone was wondering, the song was Maroon 5's Sugar.


End file.
